Presented on Wednesday, October 2, 2013 at the Quarry Farm Barn. Steve Courtney, former Publicist and Publications Editor for The Mark Twain House & Museum in Hartford, Connecticut, now works on special projects for the museum. In the past decade, Courtney has written and spoken on Samuel Clemens’ friend Joseph Hopkins Twichell and his role in literary and social history.
Steve Courtney, shares glimpses of the Clemens’ family life in Hartford -- how young Clara Clemens once screamed so loud and persistently after a pet calf had been been sold that her parents had to buy it back; how Twain had news bulletins piped up to his third-floor billiard room/study; how daughter Susy wowed the family with her grasp of ancient history. Mr. Courtney also relays the circumstances surrounding the family’s abandonment of their beloved home, along with the house’s amazing rescue from destruction and rebirth as a world-class house museum.